<p>I take back some of somments in the previous post. Here is what I found from an AP article:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/09/07/D8CFK5701.html[/url]”>http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/09/07/D8CFK5701.html</a></p>
<p>Marite, the geography of NOLA is truly unique in this country (except maybe the in-fill areas of Boston, I don’t know how much of it is actually below sea level now), but there are low-lying areas of my county, and really anywhere along the Gulf Coast, that are analogous, that is, below sea level. The population of NOLA is, obviously, much more dense, so you’ve got more people to get out, but on the other hand, you’ve got less physical space to cover - you can drive down the street with a bullhorn and alert a lot more people at once, than you could in South Mobile County.</p>
<p>As I said earlier on this thread, when we begin second guessing (which I think should happen on personal, local and national levels) these events, it is important to understand that knowing when to evacuate is a delicate thing. I’m sure that knowing when and who to tell to evacuate is even more difficult. Yes, it seems on the face of it, that there should have been a better plan for NOLA, but knowing how and when to implement that plan may not work any better if there is a next time.</p>
<p>Marite:</p>
<p>“FEMA officials said many evacuees are not interested in leaving Texas or other southern states because they want to stay as close as they can to their homes, and because they’re worried about their jobs, property and the safety of their loved ones”</p>
<p>barrons:</p>
<p>Yes, I understand that; indeed, that seems the reason why the 2,500 evacuees who were expected to be welcomed to Otis Base on Cape Cod will not be coming. That is understandable from the point of the view of the evacuees but it puts extra strains on the contiguous states. Too bad, because MA has a surplus, as well as some space, that could be used to help a number of evacuees.</p>
<p>Again, not to point fingers at any one, I instanced the case of the man who drove to Atlanta with his family ahead of Katrina, but ran out of money. He begged for money at the Mall but was arrested for panhandling. How do we, as a nation, try to help those who had the initiative to leave on their own but only limited means to survive once they’ve reached safety? How do we help cities cope with an influx of such evacuees as opposed to those who left later under the leadership of local or state agencies or private organizations? These are questions that must have arisen in areas that are the frequent and regular targets of hurricanes or floods or fire. What has happened in the past?</p>
<p>Obviously with people scattered all over the country on their own it will take some time to figure out a plan to bring them in and provide whatever relief they need. There is NO instant simple solution–sorry Americans–the government can’t always be there to make it better. </p>
<p>Here’s another little article on NO and their “planning”, etc.</p>
<p>This is a post from a reporter in Merritt Is, FL, who’s been
researching what went on before the storm hit. It will be interesting
to eventually see what the true story was.</p>
<p>On Friday night before the storm hit, Max Mayfield of the National
Hurricane Center took the unprecedented action of calling Nagin and
Blanco personally to plead with them to begin MANDATORY evacuation of
NO and they said they’d take it under consideration. This was after
the NOAA buoy 240 miles south had recorded 68’ waves before it was
destroyed.</p>
<p>President Bush spent Friday afternoon and evening in meetings with
his advisors and administrators drafting all of the paperwork
required for a state to request federal assistance (and not be in
violation of the Posse Comitatus Act or having to enact the Insurgency
Act). Just before midnight Friday evening the President
called Governor Blanco and pleaded with her to sign the request
papers so the federal government and the military could legally begin
mobilization and call up. He was told that they didn’t think it
necessary for the federal government to be involved yet. After the
President’s final call to the governor she held meetings with her
staff to discuss the political ramifications of bringing federal
forces. It
was decided that if they allowed federal assistance it would make it
look as if they had failed so it was agreed upon that the feds would
not be invited in.</p>
<p>Saturday before the storm hit the President again called Blanco and
Nagin requesting they please sign the papers requesting federal
assistance, that they declare the state an emergency area, and begin
mandatory evacuation. After a personal plea from the President, Nagin
agreed to order an evacuation, but it would not be a full mandatory
evacuation, and the governor still refused to sign the papers
requesting and authorizing federal action. In frustration the
President declared the area a national disaster area before the state
of Louisiana did so he could legally begin some advanced
preparations. Rumor has it that the President’s legal advisers were
looking into the ramifications of using the insurgency act to bypass
the Constitutional requirement that a state request federal aid
before the federal government can move into state with troops - but
that had not been done since 1906 and the Constitutionality of it was
called into question to use before the disaster.</p>
<p>…Throw in that over half the federal aid of the past decade to New
Orleans for levee construction, maintenance, and repair was diverted
to fund a marina and support the gambling ships. Toss in the
investigation that will look into why the emergency preparedness plan
submitted to the federal government for funding and published on the
city’s website was never implemented and in fact may have been bogus
for the purpose of
gaining additional federal funding as we now learn that the
organizations identified in the plan were never contacted or
coordinating into any planning - though the document implies that
they were.</p>
<p>The suffering people of New Orleans need to be asking some hard
questions as do we all, but they better start with why Blanco refused
to even sign the multi-state mutual aid pack activation documents
until Wednesday which further delayed the legal deployment of
National Guard from adjoining states. Or maybe ask why Nagin keeps
harping that the President should have commandeered 500 Greyhound
busses to help him when according to his own emergency plan and
documents he claimed to have over 500 busses at his disposal to use
between the local school busses and the city transportation busses -
but he never raised a finger to prepare them or activate them.</p>
<p>This is a sad time for all of us to see that a major city has all but
been destroyed and thousands of people have died with hundreds of
thousands more suffering, but it’s certainly not a time for people to
be pointing fingers and trying to find a bigger dog to blame for
local corruption and incompetence.</p>
<p>Pray to God for the survivors that they can start their lives anew as
fast as possible and we learn from all the mistakes to avoid them in
the future.</p>
<p>Bottom line is there is plenty of blame to go around and around,
let’s hope we all learn from this. To single out the President and
federal government for the blatant failure at the local and state
level is absurd.</p>
<p>Barrons:</p>
<p>It really is not a question of blame. If you are very successful at getting people to leave on their own ahead of some disaster, people will individually scatter and many will quickly run out of resources. Arresting people for panhandling is not a solution, though one could say that is does temporarily solve the issue of feeding and housing them at taxpayers’ expenses. The scattering that results from a successful voluntary evacuation program itself delays the rapid delivery of relief down the road. The family of the man who got arrested may be wondering whether they did the right thing by leaving early on their own instead of staying put and enduring deprivation and danger for a few days in excahnge for later getting shelter in the Astrodome and $2,000 credit. If more people make this kind of reasoning, it won’t be any easier getting them to evacuate next time a disaster threatens. That’s what I’ve been musing about, not apportioning blame or responsibility.</p>
<p>Marite, I don’t know about plans for, say Miami, or Houston or Jacksonville, but we’ve never had a situation quite like this since the great floods of the early 20th century, or even some say the Civil War</p>
<p>In hurricanes around here, and, on a much grander scale, in South Florida after Andrew, people evacuate, or hunker down, then the survivors are greeted with houses blown down, trees on house and cars, no power, maybe broken gas mains. The basic power and natural gas infrastructure is rebuilt, FEMA hauls in trailers and people set up trailers often on their own property, and begin rebuilding. If the water supply gets contaminated, that piece of infrastructure always takes a little longer to come back - Pensacola’s treatment facility is right on the bay, and it got flooded in Ivan, so it took a little longer. Overall the process takes about a year - some people in Pensacola still have tarps on their roofs from Ivan, but that is partly because they are fighting with the insurance company.
The closer you get to the coast or any body of water - river, bayou, a lake with below lake level land as in NO, the more likely there is to be storm surge flooding, which is much, much more destructive. I’ve been through several scares in the last 20 years, but this is the first time we have really seen what storm surge can do - the other storms we have had here, have been at low tide or we were on the dry side, or the waterfront areas were not as heavily populated - so you don’t seen the rampant destruction.
The closest situation was Andrew in 92. Mostly wind damage, little toxic clean-up, bulldoze the wreckage, and haul in the trailers. Homestead Air FOrce Base did not re-open after Andrew, if I am not mistaken, so a number of people working there/stationed there quietly relocated. South MS this time will work the same way if the casinos are rebuilt. The Chevron refinery near the MS/AL state line is being worked on 24/7 to get it back up, they did not have massive damage, but they have to check all the equipment for leaks and ramp up slowly. The large Northrop-Grumman facility in Pascagoula had some significant damage, but the word I’ve heard is that they are going to rebuild, and use this as an opportunity for some improvements - south MS will bury their dead, bulldoze the debris and bring in the trailers for a massive rebuilding effort.
Some of that will happen in NOLA, but the question is what about the people with no job, maybe didn’t have a job before the storm, who were sent far from their homes - will they be brought back to live in trailers, will they have help finding jobs and permanent lives elsewhere? What about the elderly? Many of them will want to come home even if the conditions are bad.
Our country is on something of uncharted territory.</p>
<p>We could see this type of massive flooding again in West Central Florida if a big enough storm hit. See map: <a href=“http://www.co.pinellas.fl.us/bcc/hurrprep.htm[/url]”>http://www.co.pinellas.fl.us/bcc/hurrprep.htm</a> </p>
<p>I wouldn’t hesitate to bet that Pinellas will have learned and very quickly call for a mandatory evacuation. I know last year on some of the outer islands (St. Pete Beach, Treasure Island, Maderia, etc.) before Charley they evacuated early, and turned off all electric and gas to the islands thereby basically forcing the residents to evacuate even if they didn’t want to. Not only was this a smart move, which had Charley hit St. Pete head on would have saved lives, but also would have prevented fires and other damage. Something perhaps all coastal towns should consider??</p>
<p>Marite, I think the folks who dispersed on their own will be able to get help, by proving where they came from - I did read something about FEMA trying to target the debit cards to the very poorest people first.
As for causing us to not evacuate next time, the “non-thinkers” aren’t going to have their behavior changed, no matter what. The rest of us, including many of us who were becoming cavalier about these storms, have had a sobering reminder of how bad it can be - I don’t think people will be more reluctant to go, they may make more far-reaching plans when they do leave.</p>
<p>One thing that hasn’t been mentioned much at all, is the tremendous improvement in accuracy of the predictions. The exact “where it hits” is still not so good, because there tends to be a lot of last minute jogging during the last 6-12 hours before landfall, and since people are already beginning to lose power, it is hard to get the word out about those changes. What has improved is their ability to forecast strengthening, weakening, storm surge at landfall, and general direction and size of the storm. If you watch or listen to the news, and pay attention, you can make much better decisions about whether or not to leave.</p>
<p>Of course that is if you have transport, and if your employer allows you to leave. Most small employers here shut down, most larger ones and “mission critical” ones, provide shelter for both workers and their families.</p>
<p>Cangel brings up a good point about employment. There was an article in my hometown paper about a young woman who lived in not far from Biloxi, worked front desk in one of the hotels. Since the hotels were getting so much business from NO her boss told her if she left she would not have a job to go back to. She is now home, because she did evacuate. She doesn’t have a job to go back to…but she’s alive and well. Something will need to be done about employer’s who choose business over life.</p>
<p>Indeed, Katrina is a sobering reminder of the incredible complexity of dealing with the aftermath of a disaster on this scale. We have not experienced it before, but I read that this scenario is not a one-off and we should consider how to cope with another one–not just in terms of immediate evacuation plans and relief, but also in terms of the medium and long-term consequences of displacement. Houston itself is below sea-level, am I correct?
As Cangel says, our country is on uncharted territory. But Katrina is providing plenty of opportunities for reflection.</p>
<p>We may get a very quick lesson again…Ophelia just made hurricane status hanging off the east coast of FL. Her current path is making no sense to forecasters and hurricane watchers like myself. It may be another bumpy ride this weekend. Which makes me wonder just how FEMA is going to handle this??</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Amen, amen, amen.</p>
<p>What a shame thoughtful CC discussion is continually thwarted by personalized slanging matches. Sooooo bloody tiresome.</p>
<p>Yeah, who thought 6 months ago we would be getting relief flights from France and CHina?! “Invaded” by the Mexican army! The whole world holds generous people.</p>
<p>When man was created - what makes us different from animals is - the ability to think - reason - and have compassion - it is embedded in all of us on this planet - tho some may contest that sad to say. But for the most part - I do agree - the whole world DOES hold generous people. I also agree that our country is on unchartered territory as well.</p>
<p>Marite, much of Houston is at or below sea level. What differentiates us from New Orleans is that we are not surrounded by water. There are many hiways and roads leading to high ground. What does not differentiate us is our complacency and belief that the “big one” will never actually come and that if it does, that it won’t really be as bad as anyone thinks. Perhaps one of the biggest lessons people in coastal areas will learn is that bad things do happen to good people and if the Hurricane Advisory Center tells us to get out of town, we should GO!</p>